This invention relates to a wild oat herbicide composition and to a method of controlling wild oats in cereal crops.
Wild oats (Avena fatua) presents a major weed problem which plagues agricultural practice on a world-wide scale. Wild oat infestations are especially prevalent and difficult to control in cereal grain crops where competition from the wild oat is responsible for yield and economic losses amounting to many millions of dollars annually. In recognition of this problem, considerable agricultural research has been devoted, in the past, to the development of herbicidal compositions and methods to combat wild oat infestations in cereal crops.
An established family of compounds which has shown a very high level of activity towards wild oats and also a marked selectivity towards cereals is the N,N-disubstituted-alanine derivatives, for example, ethyl N-benzoyl-N-(3,4-dichloro-phenyl)-amino propionate (Suffix-herbicide) for use in wheat and isopropyl (+) -2-(N-benzoyl-3-chloro-4-fluoroanilino) propionate (Barnon-herbicide) for use in barley.